Crop Dusting - NIGHT

Since the subject of night flying came up, I thought I'd toss out a
little about night spraying with helicopters and airplanes. I've done
both and prefer the helicopter. Both are OK when properly equipped but
the airplanes move faster and take more time to cover a given field
with their long turnarounds. Still, they can carry more but also have
long ferry times between loads compared to helicopters that load on the
edge of the target field.
I've had a couple of engine failures at night while spraying and was
able to get down both times safely only because I was "cocked and
locked" for it. When you are well within the "curve" at 3' agl and
doing 70-80 IAS, you don't have a whole lot of time to figure out what
to do or where you're gonna go, to dump the load or keep it, or handle
any other emergencies that may be occuring at the same time.
I got into some IMC one night while doing frost control and when I
regained ground contact I was in about a 20deg bank going backwards! I
had already started the pull up/turnaround when I hit the rapidly
developing fog bank. I tried to maintain the controlled turn and
descent back to the spray run line. I really suspect the only reason I
got away with it at all was over 1200 hours of actual IFR in my log.
Had an electrical failure one night as I was approaching some high
power lines and that really got my attention! I shut off the spray and
made as hard a climb as I could with a turn to parallel the lines. Got
it around OK and back to my loading truck. My loader heard me coming,
saw no lights, surmised I had lost my electrical and turned on every
available light to help me get it back on the ground. No big deal but
it was anxious until I knew I was clear of the powerlines!
Great fun that crop dusting and probably why I'm still at it going into
my 38th year of flying in the lowest reaches of the airspace system.
Ol S&B